Opinion by: Timothy Chen, Head of Global Strategy
Encryption adoption accelerates Southeast Asia and Latin Americaa deeper structural problem remains: payments remain slowly, error-prone and exclusive. The premise of financial sovereignty through blockchain remains fascinating.
Millions of digital assets, but they cannot seamlessly integrate them into everyday life. This paradoxical disconnect—digital wealth without practical utility—represents the biggest critical infrastructure gap in emerging markets.
Now, no bank account in the world may have tokens, but still cannot get simple financial tools, from cross-border payments to options for sustainable yields. Meanwhile, emerging markets herald development in the world – most of our savings will not belong to Fiat, but in Stablecoins.
Cryptocurrency access issues
For emerging markets, Stablecoins serves as a lifeline, providing regulatory arbitrage that enables U.S. dollar savings accounts. Users in these countries can participate in the largest and most powerful capital markets in the United States for the first time. The next step is to use the U.S. Treasury bill as a safe yield product, so we may see continued growth in tokenized funds, e.g. BlackRock’s buidl.
This is not a 10x better product for existing dollar-denominated users, but for non-committed users (especially in emerging markets), USD StableCoins is a life-changing person.
Consider that users in these markets put their savings in the US dollar horses, but cannot actually take advantage of these savings because they don’t have enough ways to undress or spend them.
While users in emerging economies are eager to adopt cryptocurrencies to escape local currency devaluation, they enter one direction of the financial system: digital assets without functional outer ramps.
Ironically, there are $100 billion Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States that can be sold through instant liquidity, but in emerging markets, stable holders do not have good external off-road vehicles. This asymmetry makes encryption a commitment to financial sovereignty theory in areas where it is most needed.
Payment as a true inclusive border
For emerging markets experiencing high inflation, Stablecoins provides crucial financial stability. However, accessing and spending these assets remains a dangerous journey through a pieced together of banks, payment rails and a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.
In a regulatory climate led by U.S. President Donald Trump, a clear embrace of stable infrastructure, including players such as Meta, Visa, Stripe, Stripe and Fidelity Renewing Explorations – demonstrating the most direct value proposition of blockchain for cross-border payments.
These fundamentally represent a centralized adaptation constrained by traditional architecture: a method that relies on blockchain as incremental enhancement to existing rails rather than a reimagining of financial infrastructure. The limitation of exclusive access in emerging markets remains.
Another core challenge is regulations. Over the past five years, many crypto services in Latin America and Southeast Asia have provided users with a way to convert local currencies into US dollar Stablecoin. However, banks are uncomfortable with such services, but these participants are constantly reorganizing their bank accounts to maintain operations.
In markets like Africa or South Asia, last-mile striptease is also a huge problem, with users lacking stable internet, smartphone access or simple banking services. These are the users that will benefit the most.
Designed to suit most finance in the world
Emerging economies represent a perfect test of the practicality of blockchains besides ideological decentralization. Just like how Chinese users cross email and credit cards and go directly into less than a decade of mobile messaging and digital payments, emerging markets are expected to lead global adoption of crypto-local banking.
From the weakest case of traditional systems, migration from 5% to over 50% of financial activities will begin. Southeast Asia and Latin America are the boundaries where new crypto banks will address real-world economic challenges. With today’s favorable regulations and infrastructure, more users can access the stables of their daily lives.
However, there is still a key part missing: the bank account layer. Most existing services offer self-monitored wallets and debit cards for striptease, but there is no easy slope method.
Necessity of the entire financial system
A new cryptocurrency bank integrated with a modular layer 2 Ethereum network can represent an architectural blueprint for solving these structural challenges. Having an infrastructure stack can achieve better unit economics and allow deposits through the familiar, tradfi bank transfer track.
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Today, most solutions offer only half the journey: allowing users to convert local currencies into digital assets, but creating a “California hotel” effect that cannot be easily restored to a real economy. This one-way approach undermines practical practicality, especially in emerging markets where daily spending needs are linked to local business.
Create a unified Fiat and cryptocurrency account with real-world spending capabilities and a full-ring system, thus enabling a full financial cycle from salary receipts to daily spending. The ultimate expression of this full-ring potential is to capture direct deposits of salary into these unified accounts: the true financial “holy grail” that eliminates the permanent friction between traditional and digital financial systems.
Until revenues are widely received in stablecoins, the world needs these powerful interfaces between systems, not only fundamental alternatives to traditional finance, but also bridges of evolution. Bank-first models utilize existing user habits and are expected to capture the shift in financial activity that is about to move to blockchain.
Fair, decentralized financial access for all
Just as today’s Neobanks reimagines banking in the mobile era, Crypto Neobanding needs to emerge from the first principles. An overall OnChain financial architecture that can make the whole ring deviate and the growing experience is crucial to meeting emerging market demands: protecting users from currency devaluation while achieving practicality.
This is as many product design challenges as technical design. The vision is to build a seamless interface that blends defi and fiat and provides fair financing access to all, such as how Windows operating systems can simplify computing through their user interface, or simplify the smartphone era by making complex technologies accessible and intuitive.
Opinion: Timothy Chen, Director of Global Strategy of the Mantle.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be considered legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent Cointelegraph’s views and opinions.
